RacingOne/Getty ImagesWith his wife, Judy, at his side, Bobby Allison (center) accepts the trophy after winning the ninth Cup race of his career, the Middle Georgia 500 at Middle Georgia Raceway in Macon in November 1957. Allison, who was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Monday, would go on to win 75 or 76 more Cup races -- depending on who is doing the counting.

By Matt Crossman

Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(May 23, 2011)

CHARLOTTE—When Bobby Allison was 17, his mom was hesitant to let him start a driving career. He promised to try harder in school if she let him. The man has a persuasive charm, so she relented and allowed him to chase his speed dreams.

“I told my mom it was going to get good. I had no idea it was going to get this good,” he said on Monday shortly before he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Here’s how good: Allison won three Daytona 500s, a Cup championship and 84 races … 85 he says, with a twinkle in his eye, always the twinkle.

In addition to being one of NASCAR’s greatest drivers, Allison is one of its greatest raconteurs. He never met a driver he wouldn’t knock out of the way, a team owner he wouldn’t walk away from in search of a faster car or an argument he wouldn’t engage.

And all with a twinkle in his eye. Take the win total. There has long been a dispute between Allison and NASCAR, with Allison favoring the higher total and NASCAR the lower. The extra win would move him out of a tie with Darrell Waltrip for third-most wins all time and into third place alone. To understand the difference between tied for third and third is to understand Bobby Allison.

Is he right? The details aren’t important now … at least to anybody except Allison. In a voiceover that aired during the induction ceremony, Allison said he won 85 races. He brought it up again in his speech: “I did win 85 times, scout’s honor, 85 times.”

Whatever the total, he was known as a dedicated, talented, headstrong driver. He was one of the first drivers to fly himself all over the country in his own plane.

“He was an innovator, always making stuff,” said Mark Martin, who one day will be inducted into the Hall of Fame just like Allison. “That’s why he won so many races.”

Martin counts Allison as an important mentor in his life, more off the track than on. “Bobby Allison was a real friend to racing, the people of racing,” he said.

Martin slept in Allison’s basement as he tried to get his career off the ground. “He shouldn’t have liked me,” Martin said. “The first time I raced him, I crashed him in Pensacola.”

Ah, but Allison doesn’t hold grudges … at least not this one. “I was going to win the race. Mark was a lap or two behind,” he said. “Mark wrecked me to get his name in the paper.”

His eyes were twinkling as he said it, of course.

That twinkle disappeared for years, though, as a series of tragedies nearly destroyed him. His sons died 11 months apart, Clifford in a crash in practice at Michigan and Davey in a helicopter crash at Talladega. He and his longtime wife, Judy, divorced as they dealt with those tragedies and memory loss he suffered after a career-ending wreck in 1988. But they reunited when they helped Kyle and Pattie Petty deal with the death of their son, Adam, in 2000. They remarried shortly thereafter.

“The world, I hope, is never that cruel to any family again,” Allison said. “But it happened. We survived it.”

Allison’s induction was the emotional high point of NASCAR’s second Hall of Fame induction ceremony. His brother, Donnie Allison, inducted him and briefly touched on the tragedies. But this was more about celebrating Allison’s outsized racing exploits and personality.

Before, during and after the event, NASCAR personalities talked about Bobby Allison’s legendary career. In 1988, he won the Daytona 500, and Davey finished second. He often is asked why he didn’t let his son win. “I’m here to tell you, friends,” Donnie Allison said, “he wouldn’t let his mother win.”

Bobby Allison is perhaps most famous for getting in a fight with Cale Yarborough at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500, a story he has told countless times, always ending with, “That’s when Cale went to beating on my fist with his face. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

He has lots of stories, and he sticks to all of them. Passionately. NASCAR chairman Brian France said Allison frequently flew to Florida to lobby his father and grandfather about this issue or that. If they were as easy to persuade as his mom was, there would be no talk about 84 or 85.